


The Habit of Bravery

by farad



Category: Magnificent Seven
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-28
Updated: 2013-04-28
Packaged: 2017-12-09 20:02:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/777454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farad/pseuds/farad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of "Sins of the Past" JD ponders trust and friendship.</p>
<p>Written for JoJo's comment_fic prompt, "Lonely are the Brave"</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Habit of Bravery

**Author's Note:**

> Set after "Sins of the Past". Not beta-ed, all mistakes my own.

 

“ _Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.”_ \- Aristotle 

 

 

 

"Why's Vin at the bar?" JD leaned forward, his arms on the table, both hands around his beer glass.

 

"Flirting with that new bartender - what's her name again, Ezra?" Buck looked over his shoulder to where Vin was standing, his back to them, his head down.

 

"Inez," Ezra said, shuffling the cards. "But I don't believe he's entertaining any notions of courtship, and if he is, Miss Recillos is not one I'd make light of. She's a very determined woman. Gentlemen, are you in?" He glanced up at the other two men then past them to Vin.

 

"Determined, is she?" Buck asked, turning back to the game and throwing in several coins. "A challenge!"

 

Ezra shook his head, irritated but not certain why. Perhaps it was at Inez, who had joined forces with his mother and was now managing his saloon – the saloon that had been his. "I wish you the best of luck," he said, hitting the deck against the table with more force than was necessary to even them up.

 

"So why's Vin at the bar?" JD persisted, though he did look to Ezra then down to his own coins. He let go of his mug long enough to toss in his ante. "Maybe I should go - "

 

"No," Ezra said at the same time Buck did. He looked at Buck who looked at him.

 

"Why not? Maybe he doesn't know we're here - "

 

"He knows," Buck said as Ezra said, "He's aware." They looked at each other again, and Ezra drew a deep breath, gesturing to Buck with one hand, conceding the conversation.

 

JD looked between them for a few seconds then said, "So why ain't he sitting with us?"

 

Ezra grinned, pleased at his timing. He dealt the cards, smiling wider when Buck looked at him for help.

 

Ezra shrugged, and after a time, Buck said, "Chris killed the man who could have cleared Vin's name. Reckon Vin's none too happy about that. He probably ain't in a sociable mood."

 

JD sat back a little in his chair, his lips turning down and his forehead wrinkling. "Chris saved his life. Seems like that'd make him happy. It makes me happy."

 

"He's happy about that," Buck said, picking up his cards as Ezra finished the deal. "But Vin was counting on taking Eli Joe in so that he could prove his innocence. Reckon that he's got to find another way now."

 

JD shook his head and picked up his own cards. As he spread them out to see what he had, he said, "Why didn't he want our help today, finding Eli Joe? Chris had to talk him into it."

 

"Your bid," Ezra said, looking to Buck.

 

Buck shook his head, glaring at the cards in his hand, but he tossed in a couple of pennies. "Vin ain't used to having people help him out," he said. "Get the feeling he don't like owing people."

 

Ezra almost laughed, but instead, he mouthed the words along as JD spewed them out.

 

"We're his friends! He wouldn't owe us!"

 

Buck looked at Ezra sideways. It would have been a glare if it weren't from the side. Then he said, "You know that, JD, I know that, hell, even Ezra here knows it though he probably don't understand it."

 

Ezra grinned but didn't say anything. He didn't have to – JD was already talking. "Then why is Vin different? He's one of us – he should feel the same way!"

 

Buck opened his mouth but nothing came out. He closed it, opened it again, and still nothing came out.

 

"Allow me," Ezra said. He almost laughed at the relief on Buck's face, but he continued on instead. "We are not all alike, as no doubt you have noticed. While we share many similar beliefs, we also share many differences within those beliefs, particularly on ideas of how to do things. You have, if I recall correctly, been on the receiving end of Mr. Larabee's conviction that, and I quote, 'you don't shoot nobody in the back.' " He said it with the same inflections he knew Chris to use, and he was rewarded with a snort of amusement from Buck and a wide-eyed stare from JD that was both delight and horror.

 

"Dare you to do that when Chris is around," Buck said.

 

"Dare?" Ezra countered. "Or bet?" Before Buck could answer he shook his head. "No, never mind. I will bet many things, but not my life."

 

"You ain't as stupid as JD's hat," Buck laughed.

 

"Hey!" JD said, leaning forward again, showing his cards.

 

Ezra glanced at them quickly, instinctively, as he said, "No disrespect intended, I'm sure."

 

JD glowered but he didn't mention his hat. Instead, he said, "So – what? Vin don't do what Chris says and he ain't over here for that reason? Hell, I think Vin's right – lots of guys shoot at us as they're riding away – they ain't looking not to kill us! If we have to shoot 'em in the back to make 'em stop shooting at us, why's that wrong?"

 

Buck drew a deep breath. "That ain't the point, JD," he said, but his voice was pitched surprisingly low, not in his usual playful tone. "What Ezra was trying to say is that we all have ideas about the way things need to get done – about how to do them. Chris has a set of rules that he thinks is right – and most of the time, we all agree with him. But sometimes, when we see things differently, we don't. Vin – well, I reckon that he's more used to doing things his own way than many of the rest of us are. It ain't that he don't want our help – he does. But he . . . " Buck lifted a hand and Ezra understood.

 

"He doesn't want any of the rest of us to be responsible if things go wrong," he said, even though he wasn't sure that really was it. It was, though, what JD would understand. "And like the rest of us, but perhaps to a different degree, he's accustomed to having to watch his own back, so he does things the way he always has: by himself."

 

JD looked at the cards in his hand, but Ezra could tell that he wasn't seeing them. Ezra looked once more at his own cards, even though he was very clear on what he was holding.

 

"He don't trust us?" JD asked. He reached down and drew out several pennies from the coins before him and tossed them into the center of the table.

 

"He trusts us fine," Buck said, tossing several cards toward the center. "He's just used to being on his own so he still thinks that way. Heck, JD, we all do."

 

JD drew a deep breath, but he was still frowning as he, too, tossed cards into the table. Ezra noted that the boy had kept three cards, probably the same three Ezra would have kept in his place. Perhaps JD was learning.

 

Ezra tossed in his pennies, meeting the bet, and then tossed away three of his cards. As he dealt out the next round of cards, JD asked, "You and Ezra aren't likely to go off on your own, not when there are others of us around to help. Nathan and Josiah, neither."

 

Buck glanced to Ezra and Ezra shrugged. After a few seconds, Ezra said, "I don't know that that's necessarily the case. " He shuffled the new cards he had dealt himself in with the ones he had kept. "Josiah makes trips off alone from time to time, as you know, and he always returns the worse for wear. Buck and I also have gone off alone. I believe Nathan has as well. And we have ample evidence of Chris' need for personal time."

 

"But that's different," JD said. "You go off to find other places to gamble, Buck goes off chasing different women. Chris is off looking for clues to who hired Fowler. Josiah – well, I don't rightly know what he goes off to do, but it ain't handling things on his own."

 

"How do you know?" Ezra asked, putting his cards face-down on the table.

 

"How do I know what?" JD asked, looking at Ezra.

 

Beside Ezra, Buck was still, and Ezra could feel the weight of his concern. But they had come this far, and if it was going to be up to him to explain the facts of life to JD, then he wasn't going to short-change the young man. "How do you know that that's what we're going off to do?"

 

"You're saying – are you saying that you're lying?" JD asked, the frown giving way to wide-eyed surprise. "You're not going off to play cards? That Buck ain't chasing after women?"

 

Ezra smiled, but he wasn't as amused as he wished he could be. "Yes, JD, I am playing cards, of course, and Buck is, most certainly, courting new and different women. But that doesn't mean that that's all we're doing. Part, yes, enough to be truthful – and because it's the nature of who we are. There are some things that are as much a part of us as breathing. But it's only a part. Who's to say that while I'm off gambling that I'm also not taking care of personal business? Or that Buck isn't? As we have no idea what Josiah is actually off doing, I rather believe that he is taking care of personal business – and he's doing it on his own. Just as Chris is."

 

JD stared at Ezra, but his gaze was vacant, his mind busy at work sorting out the ideas. As the silence grew, Buck said, "There are some things a man does on his own, JD. It don't mean he don't trust his friends – hell, you think Chris doesn't trust me? Or Vin, for that matter?"

 

JD swallowed and looked to his beer mug. He used one hand to pick it up and he took a drink, a long one. As he put the mug down, he said, "Yeah, he trusts you. But he doesn't ask for you help."

 

"No, he doesn't – not even after all we did tracking him down to that prison camp, he still don't ask for help when he goes riding out to try to find the man who hired Fowler. And Ezra don't ask for help when he goes off to get Maude out of scrapes, and Josiah don't ask for help when he goes off to do whatever it is that he does, and Vin don't ask for help when he goes off trying to clear his name. It don't mean we don't trust our friends – just means that sometimes, you got to do what you got to do, and you get used to doing it a certain way. If the time comes, when the time comes that we need help, we'll ask then." Buck glanced at his cards, shook his head, then tossed in a nickle. "Ezra needs to ask for help with these cards," he said lightly.

 

JD sighed as he tossed in a penny. "What about you?" he said, looking at Buck. "What do you do when you ride out on your own, besides going off to find a new lady?"

 

Buck shrugged and grin, as if he weren't going to answer, so Ezra did. It was, after all, only fair. "He goes off to tend the graves of Chris' family," he said, tossing in his own nickle. "And to see if people will tell him things that they might not be inclined to tell our fearsome leader."

 

Buck blinked, and Ezra knew he had surprised him. There were few secrets among them, though, they all knew each other well. Except, perhaps, for JD.

 

JD nodded, looking back at Vin. "Seems lonely, living that way."

 

Ezra tossed in another nickle, raising the pot. "Are you lonely, JD?"

 

"Me? No, but then, I ain't got all these other things to do. Guess I need to find - "

 

"You don't have to find," Buck interrupted him, tossing his cards toward the center of the table. "These sorts of problems will find you, though I'd be happy if they didn't. Don't go looking for trouble. And don't go thinking that it's a bad thing. It's not. We're not lonely, JD, we've got each other. When the time comes, we'll have help. It's just a matter of knowing the time."

 

JD looked at the cards in his hand then he tossed in a nickle. "Vin didn't know it was time today – Chris had to convince him."

 

Ezra spread his cards on the table for JD to see: two tens and an ace kicker. "Do you honestly believe that even Chris Larabee could have made Vin do something he didn't want to do?" he asked, reaching toward the small collection of coins.

 

JD put down his own hand: a pair nines and an ace kicker, the three cards Ezra had seen, and a second ace. The boy had luck. JD grinned. "No, I guess not. Vin's not gonna do anything he doesn't want to do. So you're saying he was ready for help?"

 

Buck grinned, too, glancing to Ezra. "Reckon he was," he said. "Just goes to show you, you can't always count on what you see."

 

Ezra shrugged, understanding the message: Buck had seen him look at JD's cards.

 

JD collected the small group of coins and nodded. "Think I'm going to buy Vin a beer," he said, pushing his way to his feet. Before either of them could comment, he walked away, his back straight.

 

"You think he'll ever understand?" Buck asked, leaning back in his chair.

 

"I actually hope not," Ezra said, shuffling the cards. "Would be nice for him not to have those obligations."

 

"Only way to avoid them is not to care," Buck said, "and I reckon JD's gonna care more than any of the rest of us."

 

"Perhaps he will care for the right people," Ezra said, still shuffling. "Miss Wells certainly seems resourceful enough."

 

"Yeah," Buck said. "So was Sarah."

 

They sat in silence and watched as JD stopped next to Vin and said something. Vin turned to look at JD, then after a time, he nodded and JD smiled.

 

"So was Maude," Ezra offered quietly.

 

"Reckon that was why she was in town, 'cause she needed you?" Buck watched Inez as she served Vin and JD.

 

"She was running from something," Ezra sighed. "Unfortunately, her timing was, as ever, impeccable. She ran here just in time to interrupt my own plans." He picked up his beer mug and held it toward Buck. "To loneliness – may JD never meet it."

 

Buck grinned and touched his mug to Ezra's. "To chasing women and playing cards."

 

 


End file.
